Solar cell technology has progressed over the past several decades resulting in a significant contribution to potential power sources in many different applications. Despite dramatic improvements in materials and manufacturing methods, solar cells still have conversion efficiency limits well below theoretical efficiencies, with current conventional solar cells having maximum efficiency of about 26%. Various approaches have attempted to increase efficiencies with some success. Some previous approaches include light trapping structures and buried electrodes in order to minimize surface area shaded by the conductive metal grid. Other methods have included rear contact configurations where recombination of hole-electron pairs occurs along the rear side of the cell.
When used as an electron-emitting material, amorphous diamond materials offer the potential for increasing performance due to the low work function such materials provide. Further, amorphous diamond materials can provide a wide range of band gaps that can allow for “step” excitation of electrons. In particular, electrons may be excited by incident energy, stepping up to higher discrete energy levels much like stepping up a ladder, eventually reaching enough energy that they can be emitted as free electrons. While much success has been obtained using amorphous diamond materials in various generating devices, drawbacks in performance, manufacturability, cost, and other factors have remained.